710 Chapter XXX
the European counter- revolution was England, which supplied conservative Eu-
rope with an example of perseverance, with a philosophy either traditionalist or
constitutionalist as one chose, and with a good deal of money to pay for Continen-
tal armies, in sums which reached £10,000,000 by 1800 and £57,000,000 by 1815.
In England itself, however, and more so in Scotland and Ireland, there was a
good deal of opposition to the war and sympathy for republican France. On the
extent and significance of this “Jacobinism,” especially for England itself, there has
been considerable difference of opinion. Its importance was stressed half a century
ago by the appearance of several books within a single decade.^1 Since then the
subject has been in abeyance. In recent years, at a time when German, Italian,
Austrian, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian “Jacobins” have all had their several his-
torians, hardly anything has been written on those of Britain, except for one book
by a Frenchman which leaves an exaggerated impression of revolutionary agitation
in England, and except for a few specialized articles by British writers, some of
which, to be sure, are extremely illuminating.^2 On the whole, British historians
now warn against an over- estimation of the importance of the British Jacobins,
and against attempts to see parallels between British and Continental develop-
ments. One writer, a British expert on the French sans- culottes, affirms that the
English Jacobins were of no significance, that they were strangers in their own
country, and that any war against Frenchmen was well liked by the popular classes.
These views seem hardly to coincide with the evidence, and they reflect about what
a proper English gentleman might have thought in 1797.^3
The question is not whether any groups in England desired a revolution in the
French sense, or whether revolution was possible in England in any case. The only
good answer to these questions has always been “No.” The question is rather to
examine the kind and degree of disaffection that existed in England and Scotland
(the issues in Ireland being somewhat different); to find out who was disaffected,
and why; to explain why, except in Ireland, the disaffection could not reach revolu-
tionary proportions; and to set forth the way in which disaffection was dealt with
1 G. S. Veitch, The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform (London, 1913); W. T. Laprade, England and
the French Revolution (Baltimore, 1909); W. P. Hall, British Radicalism, 1789–97 (New York, 1912);
H. W. Meikle, Scotland and the French Revolution (Glasgow, 1912); P. A. Brown, The French Revolution
in English History (London, 1918). The most accessible printed sources, aside from pamphlets and the
Annual Register, are T. B. and T. S. Howell, Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials... , 33 vols.
(London, 1809–1826); and the many documents of the popular clubs printed by order of Parliament:
Gt. Brit., Parl., Committee of Secrecy, Fire Report... and Second Report... , London, 1794, and Re-
port... , London, 1799.
2 J. Dechamps, Les lies britanniques et la Révolution française 1789–1803 (Brussels, 1949). For the
articles mentioned here see below. About a fourth of S. Maccoby, English Radicalism, 1786–1832
(London, 1955) is devoted to the years before 1800. There has been some good work by Americans: R.
T. Oliver, Four Who Spoke Out: Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Pitt (Syracuse, 1946); L. S. Marshall, The Devel-
opment of Public Opinion in Manchester, 1780–1820 (Syracuse, 1946); D. V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet
against Empire (Princeton, 1954). Since writing the above I have seen the American edition of E. P.
Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1964), which puts great stress on
English “Jacobinism.”
3 R. C. Cobb, “Les jacobins anglais et la Révolution française,” in Bulletin de la Société d ’ histoire
moderne, No. 3 for 1960. The warning against exaggeration of the significance of English “Jacobinism”
seems to be shared by A. Cobban, The Debate on the French Revolution (London, 1950), and by J. Steven
Watson, The Reign of George III (Oxford, 1960), which is Vol. XII of the Oxford History of England.